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Monday, 11 June 2012

Colouring Challenge: non-blended hair

Hi everyone! Hope you all had a good weekend and that the week ahead has only nice things in store for us. Thanks so much for the lovely comments for my last card, you make my day you really do.

News

It's all change at Make It Colourful. The fortnightly challenges have now ended BUT the colour addicts still love a challenge so we've all moved over to the Make It Crafty store blog and have become Colouring Inspiration design team members. We'll be choosing our own colouring challenges from a list that Zoe has given us, and as we all post on the blog on different days during the month there is something new to see and hopefully be inspired by every couple of days. Look for us in the Colouring Inspiration section.

My card

My card today is my first project in my new role, and it is hopefully OK to blog as it should have arrived at it's destination by now (wink!). I chose Zoe’s challenge of Hair With Fine Detail, i.e. no blending, and I used Copic markers with a little pencil overshading in parts. The hair I did with Copics only.

The digi image I chose to colour is Ginger House Wife and it doesn’t have a lot of fine detail in the hair, so it can be coloured fairly quickly without blending. I used short, light feather strokes with just the very end of the tip of my copic markers to achieve this layered look. The shades I used were: Y17, YR23, YR27, E37, and E19. Y17 is the colour that I wanted my hightlights to be – the parts where the light catches the hair and we see a shine. So I laid down a base layer of this colour first. Then I took the next colour (YR23) and made feathered strokes from the hairline towards the highlight and from the ends/outside of the hair towards the highlight, then with the next darkest shade I went over the same areas but with slightly shorter strokes so that the lighter-coloured layer underneath still showed through. To make sure that the inks didn’t blend I let each layer dry before putting the next colour on, just to be sure that I complied with the challenge!

Ginger was merged with another Make It Crafty image, Home Sweet Home. I think they go well together, don't you?

Tip: Get the stroke right

When making these feather strokes, practice using only the very end of the tip, keeping your stroke light – you are hardly touching the paper at all really. At the end of the stroke, lift the marker upwards so that the marks on the paper taper off to a point. This gives finer strokes with a tapered end so that you can more easily achieve the effect of strands of hair and texuture with strokes that are defined and not smudged together. This is the sort of line you are aiming for:

You can see how the copic marker brush tip makes a much finer tapered point than does the promarker regular tip, I don't have a fine promarker tip to compare (sorry).

If you're going for defined layers, let your ink dry before putting the next colour on - you can see the effect of feathering onto wet and dry inks:

The wet ink on the left causes the strokes to blur into each other, whereas the dry ink on the right makes the strokes much crisper.

Marker Recipe:

Hair: Y17, YR23, YR27, E37, E19

Skin: E00, E01, E11, R20, R22

Dress & Shoes: R32, R35, R37, R39

Stair carpet: YG61, YG63, YG67

I kept the card fairly simple as the coloured image is quite large, so just a couple of sheets of Papermania paper, some gold mirri card and a Prima flower were enough.

WoW! Carole...Fabulous images..Fabulous colours.I will be back again lol..to study this tutorial, Fabulous to see how the colours change when you let it dry before adding more.. Will be having a go today!!Hugs & W.Chrissyxx

Hello Carole, Have ya missed me...lol...have been awol due to my pc throwing a hissy fit and not playing at all....oh the screams could be heard for miles...lol....anyway, after much faffing and messing by many family members and a couple of strange blokes....I am back...lol...

You have made a perfect job of your card, as always Carole your colouring blows me away, it is soooo fabulous, what a fab image to, do like it...xxxx

You have colored her hair sooo beautifully, Carole...I have got to try your technique!!! You make it look sooo easy yet when I do it, everything runs together...yikes!!! I think I need a lot of practice!!!!! Hope all is well with you...has all the excitement died down a little this week?? We sure did enjoy watching all the jubilee fun on TV...the whole country was rockin!!! It's our 19th wedding anniverdary tomorrow...I have been trying to convince George that the 19th anniversary is the diamond year but he is having a real hard time believing me...LOL!!!!!Hugs!!!

Hi Corale, a brilliant scene and so brilliantly coloured, love your image. I'm in tears - had internet problems recent locally - now my MIC images have disappeared an empty file??? I just have two printed I not coloured as yet!!!Oh well - no goos crying!!Take care & hugsHeather xx

WAY TO GO CAROLE!!!! I can't wait to learn lots of coloring tips and techniques from you!!! I told you I wanted personal lessons, well, now I feel like I will be getting them! Lovely card, the image reminds me a bit of the 50's retro, tooooo cute! Great color combo too! Oh girlfriend, did I ever mess up!!!! Thanx so, so much for your sweet comments on my Steampunk card ~ I didn't set my schedule right and it published prematurely!!!! Om My! So I have to remove it. I think I was just too excited about the card and did it accidentally on purpose!!! LMAO! I love that card! Big hugs, and keep up the super coloring! Aloha, J:)